Senate Energy hears bill to clarify wind and solar decommissioning bond rules

Representative Neil Durham, the House sponsor, opened a Senate Energy Committee hearing on House Bill 31, saying the measure "enact[s] clarifying certain bonding requirements for wind and solar generation facility," and asking the committee to pass the bill.

The bill, carried in the Senate at the request of the Department of Environmental Quality, would clarify two points in Montana’s existing wind and solar bonding and decommissioning law, officials told the committee. Sonya Nowakowski, director of the Department of Environmental Quality, said the bill resolves an ambiguity about when a facility is exempt from posting a DEQ bond and establishes that facility owners may request a change in bond amounts once every five years after the initial bond submittal.

"The first clarifies that the exemption from submitting a bond ... applies only for the portion of a wind or solar facility that has…